published in: Labour Economics, 2005, 12 (3), 281-299
Temporary contracts provide employers with a tool to screen potential new employees and
have been shown to provide "stepping stones" into permanent employment for workers. For
both reasons workers on temporary contracts have an incentive to provide more effort than
permanent employees. Using indicators for unpaid overtime work and absences taken from
the Swiss Labor Force Survey we present evidence that temporary workers indeed provide
higher effort than permanent employees: Their probability of working unpaid overtime
exceeds that of permanently employed workers by 60 percent. We show the heterogeneity of
this effect across different types of temporary contracts, investigate differences between men
and women, and discuss the relevance of adverse selection into temporary employment.
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